“Perhaps the greatest ability of America is resilience, and although sometimes the country makes a painful step backward, the goal is always to move forward and remain a beacon of light, hope, and freedom for people seeking independence around the world.”~ Raymond Brunyanszki
I have tried to write this post so many times. Heck what am I saying? I have tried to articulate my thoughts the last couple weeks and feel like it is a muddled jumbo that does nothing to give me clarity and leaves anyone who reads wondering what the heck my deal is. Perhaps it is the plight of the Gemini, and yes I KNOW Gemini season is over, but it doesn’t stop me from being and I am always the peacemaker, always the empathizer. I always try to see all sides of an issue and even surrounding the issues. Hey, there was a reason I had a love hate relationship with graphs. Because I loved making them but they would go on, and on and on until they didn’t even resemble the original topic, but, yet some how, it did. It wasn’t six degrees of Kevin Bacon but sixty and six hundred degrees. It makes people frustrated when debating with me let me tell you.
The thing is though, with the overturning of Roe VS Wade, I can’t. It is flat out wrong. It is taking women’s rights away from us. And regardless of what both sides of the aisle want people to believe, it has NOTHING to do with abortion and everything to do with the reproductive rights of women. Abortion, the POLITICAL definition of abortion, not MEDICAL, literally was a single digit percentage of that, which got blown up into a much bigger issue. And not to get sidetracked here but even Roe VS Wade didn’t cover and protect us with everything, though it certainly helped. Given what I have been going through the last couple years, I literally could write a dissertation on it, both from what it protects and my own experiences.
Right after the ruling, I actually did jot down my thoughts, which at the time were incredibly raw, but also incomplete. It was also the first time I publicly acknowledged in-depth my fertility issues and what I had been dealing with and I want to thank everyone for their support, and sweet messages.
But this post isn’t about that. Not completely. It is a preface as to why I am not in the Independence spirit, especially since as a woman our freedom to our bodies have been stripped. Because while I do feel like a second or even third class citizen, there are women, in other countries, who aren’t even that. They don’t have the right to speak out, go to school, CHOOSE who they want to marry, or not marry, wear what they want, or heck go out without a MALE chaperone. I have joked with friends that I feel like I am cattle now, and I guess I should be slaughtered, but there are women who really are nothing but that. In fact the cattle are treated better than they are.
I am not writing this to say we shouldn’t be pissed off, because we should. And that we shouldn’t fight to get our rights back. Because again we should, and the irony is that is what our founding fathers did. We should do all of that. While I strongly believe we have taken multiple steps backward, we can just as quickly step forwards again. We still have far more privileged than other countries in this world and THAT is something to not only continue fighting for, but also be grateful for.
This country has a lot of problems, even before the overturning of Roe VS Wade but it is a representation of us as humans, and we, at our very core, are fallible, but we aren’t not irredeemable. Nor is this country. It takes work, a lot of hard work. Sometimes, we will get it wrong. Our Founding Fathers did. We are not perfect, and life will never be perfect. But we can’t give up, because it won’t be. We keep working, and yes we keep dreaming, because ultimately what makes us better, is continuing to strive to make our country and the world better. And we have to do that together.
We aren’t powerless. One of the amazing things about America is no matter what our voices can still be raised and they can still be heard. We STILL have the power to change things for the better. And we can still celebrate this country, even when there is work to do. A line from the Broadway show Hadestown says, “The work is never done.” and it isn’t. Yes, today feels conflicting. I even quipped to my friends, “Happy Birthday ‘Murica! Getting older but not wiser.” But there is always something to celebrate, even in our darkest moments, and there is always something to strive to be better at and for. We have so much work to do, but we should also be proud of how far we have come and our ability to dream and work to make this country and world as a whole even better.
Happy Fourth friends!
What are your thoughts on the Fourth this year?
